Right Fit Jeans by Lane Bryant (TM) - Hot or Not?

by Elegant Plus Magazine

While wide leg trouser jeans are certainly the hottest (and most flattering) silhouette available for Fall 2007,  and more designers are entering the plus denim market (last time we checked Nordstrom alone is carrying Paige Premium, Michael Kors, Svoboda, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein jeans in plus-sizes), the most exciting denim news for plus-size women this year is the unveiling of Lane Bryant’s new “Right Fit Jeans”.   Every full-figured woman (heck, every woman) knows just how difficult the search truly is for the perfect fitting pair of jeans.  Forget the status of designer labels, trendy washes and special detailing…… if your jeans don’t fit your body right you are going to be neither comfortable nor stylish.

 The Technology

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago everyone’s clothing was custom made to fit their body perfectly.  There was no “perfect size” or trying to fit all of the various shapes and sizes of feminine curves into a single prescribed, standard manufactured shape based on averages.  And then along came the Industrial Revolution and mass produced clothing.  Suddenly the whole idea that clothing should fit the body got turned on its head and instead bodies needed to fit the clothes.  And there we see the seeds of modern body image issues and fashion.

After over sixty years of static sizing standards which we are all still trying to get our bodies to mold into, a new women’s clothing sizing project was born. Right Fit  comes from a three year initiative by Lane Bryant using cutting edge technology to scan 14,000 women’s bodies and compile the data to give their design team precise and scientific information about how full-figured bodies are shaped and how to fit those bodies. 

And guess what?  They found out what we all knew all along.  There is no one single plus-size body type.  We come in all different shapes of curves.

The Sizing

This is where a great idea gets confusing in execution.   Instead of using a sizing system and numbers  with which we are all familiar, Lane Bryant has created a new sizing system from 1 to 8.  And from there, they’ve created three shapes which are color coded: a Yellow body type is straight from the waist through the hips; a Red fit is slightly curved from the waist to the hips; and a woman with a Blue body type has a small waist and is fullest at the hips.  Finally a variety of inseam lengths are available for petite, average and tall plus-size women.

Without their sizing calculator it’s anybody’s best guess what a normally sized 20 pear might wear (OK, we can say “Blue” but would that be a Blue 2, Blue 5, or….??) .  But we can tell you this,  waist measurements from 34″-52″ are used in the calculator and hip sizes 36″-65″ are available.   This leads us to suspect that some of our more voluptuously proportioned, super-sized sisters may actually be included in this new sizing system.  And this isn’t as much of a shocker as it at first appears because over the last year or so, Lane Bryant has been quietly experimenting with extending the top of their size range in select styles from 28W to larger.   We couldn’t find anything on the website larger than a 28W when we popped in today, but the new Lane Bryant Catalog releasing this fall by parent company Charming Shoppes will carry sizes as large as 44W.  Furthermore, plus-size  specialty sister store, Catherine’s, is also offering the Right Fit jeans and they serve women up to sizes 34W and extend the Right Fit specialty sizing system from 8 to 12.

Hot or Not?

Right Fit jeans are available under the Venezia label at Lane Bryant in different styles: classic, flare, Houston trouser fit and boot cut; lengths: petite, average and tall; and washes: light rinse, medium vintage, dark blast, and dark rinse.  Prices are much more reasonable than most premium, designer lines of jeans and  range from $39.50 to $49.50.

So here’s our question to you, dear readers.  Are the Right Fit Jeans from Lane Bryant hot or not?  Have you tried them?  Do they fit as well as promised?  Do you like the styling? Do you like the idea of a completely new sizing system or do you find it confusing?  We want to know!

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More full-figured jeans can be found in the Elegant Plus Jeans and Denim Directory.

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